Proper Discipline and Education of our Children
249
influences. It is a sin for parents to allow their children to grow up in
ignorance. They should supply them with useful and interesting books,
and should teach them to work, to have hours for physical labor, and
hours to devote to study and reading. Parents should seek to elevate
the minds of their children and to improve their mental faculties. The
mind left to itself, uncultivated, is generally low, sensual, and corrupt.
Satan improves his opportunity and educates idle minds
The mother’s work commences with the infant. She should subdue
the will and temper of her child, and bring it into subjection, teach it
to obey. As the child grows older, relax not the hand. Every mother
should take time to reason with her children, to correct their errors,
and patiently teach them the right way. Christian parents should know
that they are instructing and fitting their children to become children of
God. The entire religious experience of the children is influenced by
the instructions given, and the character formed, in childhood. If the
will is not then subdued and made to yield to the will of the parents, it
will be a difficult task to learn the lesson in after years. What a severe
struggle, what a conflict, to yield that will which never was subdued,
to the requirements of God! Parents who neglect this important work
commit a great error, and sin against their poor children and against
[194]
God
Parents, if you fail to give your children the education which God
has made it your duty to give them, you must answer to Him for the
results. These results will not be confined merely to your children. As
the one thistle permitted to grow in the field produces a harvest of its
kind, so the sins resulting from your neglect will work to ruin all who
come within the sphere of their influence
The curse of God will surely rest upon unfaithful parents. Not
only are they planting thorns which will wound them here, but they
must meet their own unfaithfulness when the judgment shall sit. Many
children will rise up in judgment and condemn their parents for not
restraining them, and charge upon them their destruction. The false
sympathy and blind love of parents causes them to excuse the faults of
their children and pass them by without correction, and their children
291
Testimonies for the Church 1:398, 399
292
Testimonies for the Church 1:390, 391
293
Child Guidance, 115